क्रिकेट ब्रिज

क्रिकेट ब्रिज 184. A Queen Triumphant “Oh that is a little girl visiting us. My wife’s cousin is spending a week in Calgary and has brought an animated bunch of Alberta sage-brush with her.”,“It was six.”,The short daylight fades; the wind grows higher; the whole scene is curious, and very nearly fantastical. The pretty girl in her clinging satin gown, and her gleaming neck and arms, bare and soft and white, and the tiny lace-fringed cap that crowns her fairness. The gaunt trees branching overhead that are showering down upon her all their fading wealth of orange and crimson and russet-colored leaves, that serve to throw out the glories of her dress. The brown-green sward is beneath her, the river runs with noiseless mirth beside her, rushing with faint music over sand and pebble to the ocean far below. Standing before her is her lover, gazing at her with adoring eyes.,"How could I help laughing," says Mona. "Mr. Darling has just expressed surprise at the fact that the Irish peasantry do not as a rule possess watches." Then suddenly her whole face changes from gayety to extreme sorrow. "Alas! poor souls!" she says, mournfully, "they don't, as a rule, have even meat!","Are you sure you've got 'em boxed safe, Bill?" he asked, fearfully.，"Certainly dear. Who is it?"，He now for the first time stopped to listen—the sounds of pursuit were ceased, and all was silent! Continuing to wander on in effectual endeavours to escape, his hands at length touched cold iron, and he quickly perceived it belonged to a door. The door, however, was fastened, and resisted all his efforts to open it. He was giving up the attempt in despair, when a loud scream from within, followed by a dead and heavy noise, roused all his attention. Silence ensued. He listened for a considerable time at the door, his imagination filled with images of horror, and expecting to hear the sound repeated. He then sought for a decayed part of the door, through which he might discover what was beyond; but he could find none; and after waiting some time without hearing any farther noise, he was quitting the spot, when in passing his arm over the door, it struck against something hard. On examination he perceived, to his extreme surprize, that the key was in the lock. For a moment he hesitated what to do; but curiosity overcame other considerations, and with a trembling hand he turned the key. The door opened into a large and desolate apartment, dimly lighted by a lamp that stood on a table, which was almost the only furniture of the place. The Count had advanced several steps before he perceived an object, which fixed all his attention. This was the figure of a young woman lying on the floor apparently dead. Her face was concealed in her robe; and the long auburn tresses which fell in beautiful luxuriance over her bosom, served to veil a part of the glowing beauty which the disorder of her dress would have revealed.，"No, doctor! I am too weary to frame theories at this hour of the night. But, no doubt, Mr. Inspector yonder, can--"For again news came from Australia that the former tidings of George Rodney's death had been false; that he had only died a twelvemonth since; that he had married almost on first going out, and that his son was coming home to dispute Sir Nicholas's right to house and home and title.

Mr Lawrence was for a few days very uneasy, but uneasy is a mild term to express the state of a man's mind that starts at a look or an exclamation, who fancies he is whispered about when two go past him talking, who expects that every man who approaches him is going to speak to him about the letter he has found, who imagines that every look that his father fastens upon him is a prelude to a tremendous attack, who is willing to attribute the silence of Captain Acton to the consideration of what steps in the face of such an enormity should be taken by him against the son of his old friend Sir William Lawrence.,Impulsively Bob put out his hand. “We’ll win out, Jerry, and we’ll be proud that we did it. If something should happen—it’s for the Service!”,Elinor paused in her hair brushing, and sank down on the stool, absently propping her chin on her brush.,The King said to his brother "If the King of the Peacocks is a peacock himself, how can our sister marry him? it would be folly to consent to such a thing, and it would be a fine thing for us to have little peacocks for nephews." The Prince was equally disturbed at the thought. "It is an unhappy fancy she has taken into her head," he said. "I cannot think what led her to imagine that there was such a person in the world as the King of the Peacocks.",In a few days the marchioness arrived at the castle. She was followed by a numerous retinue, and accompanied by Ferdinand, and several of the Italian noblesse, whom pleasure attracted to her train. Her entrance was proclaimed by the sound of music, and those gates which had long rusted on their hinges, were thrown open to receive her. The courts and halls, whose aspect so lately expressed only gloom and desolation, now shone with sudden splendour, and echoed the sounds of gaiety and gladness. Julia surveyed the scene from an obscure window; and as the triumphal strains filled the air, her breast throbbed; her heart beat quick with joy, and she lost her apprehensions from the marchioness in a sort of wild delight hitherto unknown to her. The arrival of the marchioness seemed indeed the signal of universal and unlimited pleasure. When the marquis came out to receive her, the gloom that lately clouded his countenance, broke away in smiles of welcome, which the whole company appeared to consider as invitations to joy.,Here and there a pack is discovered, so unexpectedly as to be doubly welcome. And sometimes a friendly native will tell him of some quiet corner where "his honor" will surely find some birds, "an be able in the evenin' to show raison for his blazin'." It is a somewhat wild life, but a pleasant one, and perhaps, on the whole, Mr. Rodney finds Ireland an agreeable take-in, and the inhabitants of it by no means as eccentric or as bloodthirsty as he has been led to believe. He has read innumerable works on the Irish peasantry, calculated to raise laughter in the breasts of those who claim the Emerald Isle as their own,—works written by people who have never seen Ireland, or, having seen it, have thought it a pity to destroy the glamour time has thrown over it, and so reduce it to commonplaceness.,Mr. Wopp looked up in approval and brandished a formidable looking piece of fat meat, precariously poised on one prong of his fork and in his efforts to lose none of its dripping flavor, described an uncertain spiral in the air.,Somewhere behind him Billy heard a giggle, which was immediately suppressed as he turned and looked over his shoulder.,The first thing was to examine his prison. There might be an opening that had been overlooked. Bob started from the door and felt every inch of the wall within his reach. His fingers had to do duty for his eyes, as by this time night had fallen and the interior of the hut was pitch dark. Not even a ray of moonlight came through the cracks in the door. In this slow fashion he made the circuit of the room without finding even a crack in the dried clay.,"If I had only listened to you, Jack, we wouldn't have lost that whisky," he said. "I was dead sure nobody would go near that place. And at that we didn't find what we did the job to get, did we? It'll be just our luck to have that will turn up in time to cook our goose, yet.",The cabin that Lucy was now to occupy had been fitted up and furnished with all possible reference to her needs, for it had been hoped that if she was not overtaken at sea she would be found at Rio, and Acton's and his sister's expectations were not so forlorn but that they believed the Aurora would return with the girl, and the possibility was to be provided for with as much foresight as could be bestowed on the circumstance of her return as a fact. The boxes contained such wearing apparel as she herself might have chosen from her wardrobe. The toilet table was comfortably supplied: indeed nothing that she was accustomed to use in dressing herself was absent.,Her confusion, however, and the fact that no one else is near, betrays the secret she fain would hide..